Social Big Data
Social media data holds information with high-impact and wide-ranging implications. Social media refers to online platforms on which individuals and communities create, share, and discuss content. There are platforms for social networking (e.g., Facebook, MySpace), blogging and microblogging (e.g., Twitter, Tumblr), media-sharing (e.g., Instagram, YouTube), and many other social functions. One in four people worldwide, over a billion people, are publicly documenting their activities, plans and intentions, moods and opinions, and social interactions on these sites. They are doing so in with increasing volume and velocity, including 400 million “tweets” per day on Twitter and 4.75 billion content items shared per day on Facebook. The resulting body of data (“social big data”) thus holds valuable insights for all areas of research that aim to understand what, when, why, or how people do, say, or think.
Predictive Modeling
UCIPT is the first unified research and technology institute leveraging social big data for predictive modeling. By bringing together leading experts in psychology, computer science, and mathematics, UCIPT is pioneering methods and tools for analyzing social big data to predict behavior and related outcomes (such as health risk behaviors, criminal activity, voting, consumer trends, and much more). Working with partners from multiple fields and sectors, we aim to scale our software tools for a diverse range of potential use cases.